Super Bowl XL was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Seattle Seahawks and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 2005 season. The Steelers defeated the Seahawks by the score of 21–10. The game was played on February 5, 2006, at Ford Field in Detroit.

With the win, the Steelers joined the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys as the only franchises to have won five Super Bowls. Pittsburgh, who finished the regular season with an 11–5 record, also became the fourth wild card team, the third in nine years, and the first ever #6 seed in the NFL playoffs, to win a Super Bowl. The Seahawks, on the other hand, were making their first ever Super Bowl appearance after posting an NFC-best 13–3 regular season record.

The Steelers jumped to a 14–3 lead early in the third quarter with running back Willie Parker's Super Bowl record 75-yard touchdown run. Seahawks defensive back Kelly Herndon's Super Bowl record 76-yard interception return set up a Seattle touchdown to cut the lead 14–10. But Pittsburgh responded with Antwaan Randle El's 43-yard touchdown pass to Hines Ward, the first time a wide receiver threw a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl, to clinch the game in the fourth quarter. Ward, who caught 5 passes for 123 yards and a touchdown, while also rushing for 18 yards, was named Super Bowl MVP.

The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather than the year in which it is held. For example, Super Bowl I was played on January 15, 1967, following the 1966 regular season, while the most recent game, Super Bowl XLVI, was played on February 5, 2012, to determine the champion of the 2011 season.

The game was created as part of a merger agreement between the NFL and its then-rival league, the American Football League (AFL). It was agreed that the two leagues' champion teams would play in an AFL–NFL World Championship Game until the merger was to officially begin in 1970. After the merger, each league was redesignated as a "conference", and the game was then played between the conference champions. Currently, the NFC leads the series with 25 wins to 21 wins for the AFC.

Jerome Abram "The Bus" Bettis (born February 16, 1972) is a retired American football halfback who played for the NFL's Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams and Pittsburgh Steelers. Bettis is considered one of the best big backs ever because of his footwork and power, and is currently sixth on the National Football League's all-time rushing list. He retired in 2006 after a Super Bowl victory at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, his city of birth.

Bettis was born February 16, 1972, in Detroit, Michigan. He is the youngest of three children of Gladys Elizabeth (née Bougard) and Johnnie E. Bettis. Bettis did not start playing football until high school, as his primary passion as a youth had been bowling. He attended Mackenzie High School in Detroit, where he was a standout running back and linebacker. As a senior, he was rated the top player in the state by the Detroit Free Press, and was the Gatorade Circle of Champions Player of the Year award winner.^{[citation needed]}

At the University of Notre Dame, Bettis finished his career with 337 rushing attempts for 1912 yards (5.7 yards per rushing attempt avg.), and made 32 receptions for 429 yards (13.4 yards per reception). In his last game as a junior, a 28-3 win by Notre Dame over Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, he rushed 20 times for 75 yards.

Antwaan Randle El (pronounced /ˈæntwɑːn ˌrændəlˈɛl/; born August 17, 1979) is an NFL free agent. He attended Indiana University. At Indiana, he primarily played college football for the Indiana Hoosiers, as well as basketball and baseball.

Following four years at Indiana, Randle El was drafted in the second round (62nd overall) of the 2002 NFL Draft, by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Playing with the Steelers for four seasons, he was active in all 64 regular season games with 23 starts, finding success as a wide receiver, kick returner and punt returner. He was also instrumental in a number of trick plays, including throwing a touchdown pass as a wide receiver for the Steelers in Super Bowl XL, the only wide receiver in history to do so. After the 2005 NFL season, Randle El was signed as a free agent to the Washington Redskins. As a receiver for the Redskins, he scored ten touchdowns, catching eight and throwing two. In 2007, Randle El was sidelined for a game against the Buffalo Bills with a hamstring injury, to date being his only inactive game.